Educators

Here are some examples of how educators have used the About-USM in their curricula.

The School of Management and Business at
St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas

St Edwards (http://www.stedwards.edu/) has incorporated the About-USM in two courses:

• Organizational Ethics and Leadership, a 7-weeks accelerated ethics course in improving leadership and ethics skills.
• Networking and Relationship Building, a one-hour elective course which focuses on how to network in finding a career and life path.

A large Independent School District (ISD) in Texas:

CISD is a rapidly-growing school district in the Houston metropolitan area, which has an extensive Career and Technology Education (CTE) program. The CTE program “guides students into career pathways … with a thorough understanding of mechanical operations and processes.” The About_U assisted the staff to face three major challenges in insuring the program’s success:

1. Communicating about the program to others
2. Recruiting
3. Evaluating the program

After their experience with the information they gained about learning styles and career options from the About-U, the staff is currently seeking ways to obtain financing that would allow students access to the process.

Residential Facility for College Students labeled LLD:

An Institute and Center for Innovative Learning in the Northeast part of the United States provides a nurturing environment for students with learning disabilities.

The students who attend the institute have been labeled by public and private schools as learning disabled and given a sense of who they are supposed to be, rather than who they actually are. They have had a great deal of feedback on how they do not “fit” into existing cultures and structures of public education. The students have the daunting task of finding ways to live in the “real” world using their innate capabilities, without ever really understanding what those capabilities are.

The school decided to incorporate the About-U process into the summer programs and mandated that each new student be taken through the process during orientation. The most common comment from the students was “This tells me who I am and what I need - and it doesn’t label me.” This reaffirmed that the About USM Report does work for, and greatly benefit, young adults with learning disabilities who have “normal” intelligence.